Tag Archives: books

Come join the party as Frankie and Miss Lionheart launch their books with science games, and fun. With prizes for the best dressed scientist and monster costume – but never fear, most scientists and some monsters look just like ordinary people!

50% from A.J. Ponder’s books sold at Rona Gallery will go to Te Omanga Hospice as part of the “Ponder This” exhibition. 3-20 August.

Nominations for the 2016 Sir Julius Vogel awards will open on 1st December 2015. The nomination period will close at 8.00 pm on 28th February 2016. The awards recognise excellence in science fiction, fantasy, or horror works created by New Zealanders and New Zealand residents, and first published or released in the 2016 calendar year.

Anyone can make a nomination and it is free! To make a nomination please email sjv_awards@sffanz.org.nz. See the website for the categories and get busy reading NZ authors and watching NZ movies. We have a list of New Zealand works that may be eligible for nomination here.

The rules and criteria for the Sir Julius Vogel Award can be found here.

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Steam Press is supremely excited to launch its first fantasy novel, The Sovereign Hand, by Paul Gilbert.

The launch will be at Matchbox Studios, 166 Cuba St, Wellington, from 5.30pm on Thursday 21 August.

“In my experience, the difference between hope and despair turns on the tiniest thing…”

Thorn, the gilded capital: bedecked in steam and the dust of convoys bearing riches from all across the earth. From here, wise and ruling hands have ensnared all Aurawn in a great story, a Primacy of Peace. A land where every person – human, gobelin, or drake – can dream, toil hard and succeed.

Of course, not everyone sees things that way. But when Alexa Temperen stands above Crucible Square and denounces the First and all his government for their injustices, the last thing she imagines is that she’ll soon be working for them, as a champion: one of the Sovereign Hand.

Because prophecy has spoken. Evil is stirring, and Alexa is just one of five unlikely heroes chosen to face it. They each have their doubts, and in her darkest moment Alexa still must decide: put pride aside and fight for a government she despises, or turn her back on her calling, leaving millions at the mercy of an unimaginable terror…

Jacqui Smith of SFFANZ Review wrote that The Sovereign Hand has “clever and carefully measured prose… a meticulous setting, and memorable characters…” and noted that it is “quite possibly one of the best works of fantasy ever published in New Zealand,” while Bernard Beckett has called this “a truly ambitious novel, both in scope and subject matter… A wonderfully energetic debut, a celebration of form and expression.”

Almost all the stories nominated for this year’s Campbell Award are available for download as a free ebook. The book contains more than 800,000 words of fiction by 111 authors.

The Campbell award is presented every year at the World Science Fiction Convention. It is an award for the best new writers. The award celebrates potential: Nominees are often young (though not always), and the Campbell award tends to serve as a signpost for fans, pointing the way to the next great read.

Download this ebook and treat yourself to a lot of wonderful stories. And see if you can identify the people who will go on to be the great names of science fiction in the future…

Hachette New Zealand is absolutely thrilled to announce that Wellington based author Phillip Mann has made the shortlist of the Arthur C. Clarke Awards for his book The Disestablishment of Paradise.An epic ecological science fiction thriller, The Disestablishment of Paradiseis atale of Love and Destruction on a strange planet called Paradise.

The full Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist includes God’s War by Kameron Hurley (Del Rey), Ancillary Justiceby Ann Leckie (Orbit), Nexusby Ramez Naam (Angry Robot), The Adjacentby Christopher Priest (Gollancz),The Machineby James Smythe (Blue Door) and of course The Disestablishment of Paradiseby Phillip Mann (Gollancz). The winner of the UK’s top science fiction prize will receive a cheque for £2014, will be announced on 1 May and will join a list of former winners including Margaret Atwood, M. John Harrison and China Miéville.

Phillip Mann was born in Yorkshire. A theatre lover, he studied English and Drama at Manchester University and later in California. He worked in the New China News Agency in Beijing for two years and there wrote his first novel. He has lived in New Zealand since 1969, working as a professional theatre director and writer. He founded the Dept of Drama at Victoria University in 1970 and retired as Professor of Drama in 1997. To date he has published 10 novels, in addition to which he has written plays for the theatre and many stories for Radio New Zealand. A volume of his short stories, Maestro and Other Stories is due for publication in May this year.

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